2 funky 2 stay off social media: Prince joins Twitter

Musician Prince has started tweeting, using the account of his three-woman band.

He'll never be as eagerly public as Kim Kardashian, but notoriously private pop icon Prince joined Twitter on Tuesday, using a verified account already established for use by his three-woman band, 3rd Eye Girl.

It's a surprising turnaround because in 2010, the "Purple Rain" star famously told Britain's Daily Mirror that "the Internet's completely over," comparing it to MTV as something that had its heyday, then faded.

The 3rd Eye Girl account had already been up and running since January, but Prince himself hadn't joined in until Tuesday.

Like most Twitter users, he started slow, with a couple "testing" posts.

And then he slyly jumped in with one of the classic Twitter stereotypical posts -- a picture of his meal, in this case, a salad liberally doused with pepper, incorporating his trademark Prince spelling preferences.

He then tweeted a photo of himself with the caption "hi im prince," which turned out to have been taken from a Funny or Die parody post in which the site pretended to be Prince recapping the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Tex.

He also poked fun at his reputation for sending his legal team after online sites that post his music without permission. Although it's gone now, Billboard magazine reports that the account posted a video of Prince and his band performing the "Purple Rain" classic "Let's Go Crazy," with the caption: ""CATCH THIS NOW B4 MY LAWYERS DEW."

Some fans wondered if it was really The Purple One posting, but multiple sources in a position to know confirmed that it was. After tweeting, "I knew you'd give in," musician Questlove acknowledged that not every tweet from the band's account came from Prince, but that some did. (Questlove should know -- he once went roller-skating with Prince.)

4 every1 asking me if those tweets were real on @3rdeyegirl. Yes. Does that mean he took over. Entire account? Doubt it.